American-Israeli Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff says that the Trudeau government didn’t do its “due diligence” when they spent nearly one billion dollars training Ukrainian neo-Nazis proudly wearing the SS insignia.
“The Canadian government didn’t do its due diligence. It’s the responsibility of the Canadian defence ministry to know exactly who they are training,” Zuroff said in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen.
He added, “There is no question that there are neo-Nazis in different forms in Ukraine, whether in the Azov regiment or other organizations.”
The Azov battalion is an infamous neo-Nazi regiment in the Ukrainian military. They were trained in Canada in 2020, going on to brag about it online. Nonetheless, CTV News has chosen to use them as a news source on multiple occasions.
During training, those training the Azov battalion became aware of their neo-Nazi roots, as the battalion wasn’t shy about donning the SS insignia, giving the Nazi salute, or demonstrating in other abhorrent ways.
Zuroff further said that he believes the Trudeau government’s decision to train literal neo Nazis wasn’t a conscious decision.
However, in 2017, Canada’s Joint Task Force Ukraine “produced a brief on the Azov Battalion, acknowledging its links to Nazi ideology,” reports the Ottawa Citizen. In other words, the government should have been well aware of who was being shipped over for training.
Furthermore, while many in the mainstream media have slandered anyone reporting on the Azov battalion as Russian propagandists, Zuroff says, “It’s not Russian propaganda, far from it. These people are neo-Nazis. There is an element of the ultra-right in Ukraine, and it’s absurd to ignore it.”
For their part, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) say that they’re under no obligation to do background checks on foreign regiments they’re assigned to train and Ukraine is responsible for looking into its own military members.
Canadian Forces Capt. Véronique Sabourin said that Canadian soldiers can report far-right trainees to be removed, but “There is no burden of proof on the CAF to demonstrate this beyond a reasonable doubt.”
